The first breadcrumb word that Parker Palmer put down. . . the first breadcrumb phrase Madeline Le’Engle decided to write. . . the first breadcrumb step that Henry Nowen took to put his ideas on paper, a form that would stay.
Each crumb led to the next and the next, until five loaves and two fish sentences came to a writing basket busting at the seams. Words overflowed into other lives as sentences strung together challenged, encourage, edified, and shifted the reader in present tense somehow with the author across time. This reader is thankful they took courage and wrote.
Their words live outside the spines in my colorful bookshelf. They become thoughts and shift new words, mine, now yours. This writing reading thing is soul-mingling stuff. When one can find a way to write at the edges, pushing the box just a little farther, then retreating, then pushing just one more inch. Their courage to enter that uncomfortable space leaves us all less alone. Imagine the meandering treasure thoughts never discovered if not for that first bread-crumb word. Imagine the void left. In his old age Michangelo said to his apprentice, “Paint, paint and don’t waste time.” Imagine if we all got about our words or painting or living that way. All it takes is one willing crumb.
Evi Wusk 
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